Author Archives: The Voice

Hampshire News brings us the glad tidings:

The Conservatives lost overall control of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council last night after the Liberal Democrats won the Baughurst by-election.

Liberal Democrat Michael Bound secured 428 votes to beat Tory Zoe Wheddon, who polled 368 votes. The turnout was 41 per cent.

The by-election was called after the death of sitting Conservative councillor Sheila Allen, in September.

The result wiped out the Conservatives’ majority, leaving them with half the 60 council seats. The Liberal Democrats now have 16 councillors, while the Labour group retains 11 and the independents three.

This is the latest good result for …

Press release from the party: 

GOVERNMENT HAS NATIONALISED NORTHERN ROCK BUT PRIVATISED THE PROFITS – CABLE

Commenting on Alistair Darling’s statement to Parliament today on the Northern Rock crisis, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable said:

“It is particularly ironic that the Prime Minister felt the need to fly to a communist country to come up with a supposedly private sector solution for Northern Rock.

“The reality is the Government has ingeniously come up with a private sector sale that doesn’t involve any private sector money.

“In order to save face Brown has decided that losses of Northern Rock should be nationalised, but that profits …

Nick Clegg gave an interview to The Herald on his visit to Scotland during the week. You can watch it here (note: it may start automatically on your computer):

Islington South & Finsbury Labour MP Emily Thornberry is an old friend of LDV – we noted her hypocrisy here (September) and her ticking off by the Parliament’s standards watchdog here (October).

Now Ms Thornberry is in trouble again – this time for using taxpayers’ money to send out unsolicited letters to residents on Parliamentary stationery using pre-paid envelopes. She is being forced by the Serjeant-at-Arms to pay back the money she illegitimately spent in the run-up to the 2007 election-that-never-was. As the MP sent out at least 10,400 letters with first-class postage, she could face a bill of …

Nick Clegg has just announced that the party’s Chief Executive Chris Rennard has been reappointed as Chair of the General Election Campaign for the Liberal Democrats. Lord Rennard had previously been given the role by Ming Campbell.

Andrew Stunell is chair of the local election campaign. The party’s press release also mentions Willie Rennie’s new position as Chair of Parliamentary Campaigns and Ed Davey’s continued role as Chair of the Campaigns and Communications Committee.

2008 has been a tremendously successful year for Liberal Democrat Voice, with more readers, more content and more comments than ever. But we want to be even bigger and better in 2009.

You’ll have seen some of our plans already, including the introduction of new regular features such as James Graham’s weekly Lib Dig Pig round-ups (covering the best of the internet beyond the Liberal Democrat blogosphere).

We also want to expand our online advertising and our presence at party events so that we can reach out to that wider pool of people who are interested in the sorts of stories we …

The Independent has a story today on Hannah Gardiner taking over from Puja Darbari.

Amongst her other skills, Puja was always very helpful to bloggers seeking interviews with Ming – thank you Puja.

Hannah is the head of the party’s media operation, so this news sounds as if one integrated media operation is planned, rather than complementary party and leader’s office media operations.

The Times has reported allegations about party donations to the Lib Dems.

Pete Dunphy has a post with his take on the article.

UPDATE: The paper has a follow-up article today.

Sunday’s Observer brings an amusing tirade from Jasper Gerard, directed at Simon Jenkins – or rather Simon’s tendency to get rather worked up about the Liberal Democrats. As Gerard writes:

I enjoy a glow of familiarity whenever I read an article by Simon Jenkins on the Liberal Democrats. So last week, he dismissed Nick Clegg, their new leader, much as he had dismissed Ming Campbell and, for all anyone can remember, Archibald Sinclair and Lloyd George…

In all its essentials, the article is the same every year, explaining why Lib Dems are not worth writing about. Sometimes, it proves necessary to

…

Posted on their behalf:

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The Liberal Democrat History Group is looking for a volunteer to help with editorial work on the group’s web site.

The Group promotes the discussion and research of the histories of the Liberal Democrats, Liberal Party and SDP, and of Liberalism. We do this through meetings, our quarterly Journal of Liberal History, occasional books and our web site.

Originally established to carry news about our activities, the website has since grown substantially through the ongoing Liberal History Online project. As far as we aware, nothing anywhere else on the web makes available such a wide range of …

It’s happened in the London Borough of Sutton:

A Cheam councillor has been disqualified for a year after being found guilty of breaching the councillors’ code of conduct.

Eleanor Pinfold was stripped of her title today after a councillors’ watchdog found she had used brash and offensive language when communicating with council officers and Sutton Police.

She was also found to have brought the council into disrepute by claiming its planning department was corrupt…

Supt Shadbolt made a complaint about her after she had also accused him of being politically biased towards the Liberal Democrats and of skewing crime figures.

(Read full local …

Hilary Stephenson, the party’s Director of Campaigns and Elections has been in touch with The Voice to express her satisfaction with the way the party has been welcoming its new leader.

I’m delighted that we have got Nick Clegg’s leadership off to a flying
start. Party campaigners across the country seem to have been eager to get their hands on the latest campaign materials to promote Nick’s leadership – even in the midst of the Christmas preparations.

Yesterday and today Lib Dems have been busy across the country handing out fliers introducing our new leader Nick Clegg. The first went out just a

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We’re nearly halfway through Advent, which means we’re nearly halfway through our Labour Party Christmas Cheer Advent Calendar.

It feels like we have Labour donation scandals coming out of our ears and we have a pile of stories still to cover, but if you’ve got any other good examples of Labour calamity you think we should highlight in the run-up to Christmas, do let us know in the comments.